Reputation is a fickle beast in the NBA.
This is due to a variety of factors, from on-field production to brilliance of playing style to media attention to fan-created narratives. And, more importantly for our purposes, it doesn’t always match the actual quality of the game, sometimes not by a long shot.
These eight players employ very different styles on the floor, line up in different positions and are at different stages of their respective careers, but they all have one thing in common. Their level of play does not match the general perception of their games.
And not in a good way.
Reason for value disconnection: Physical tools do not translate
A 7-footer with a chiseled 250-pound frame who can take down defenders when he doesn’t show off his delicate touch around the basket, Deandre Ayton has all the physical tools you could ask for in a big man operating within the confines of the modern NBA. .
But the aggression is not there. So does sometimes his apparent passion, or lack thereof, for playing basketball with great effort, winning, as demonstrated in a viral play in which he decided not to even attempt to scramble and regain possession in a three-point game late in the fourth quarter. (It is not the first time his level of effort was also scrutinized.)
Ayton wore out his welcome with the Phoenix Suns and his public stock dropped as a result. But general perception hasn’t caught up with his continued decline, as he seems to avoid taking high-leverage touches and rarely asserts himself against overmatched defenders, with a goal average per 36 minutes considerably lower than his averages of career for the Portland Trail Blazers. he cannot even install the hard screens necessary to raise the performance of the young people around him on the pitch.
“He played really hard tonight. I saw that, and my challenge for him is to play like that every night,” former teammate Devin Booker said after their first face-to-face, which pretty much explains everything.
Reason for value disconnection: Titles based on bravado
Dillon Brooks seems so desperate to make Dillon Brooks a thing.
He refers to himself in mean ways, calls out big-name opponents, plays with no shortage of look-at-me talent, and seems to generate a strange level of headline omnipresence for someone who hasn’t actually been particularly effective on both sides of the page. floor.
To his credit, the Houston Rockets have indeed been better with him on the court, and he has played arguably the best basketball of his career since leaving the Memphis Grizzlies for a team that is undeniably on the rise. That’s all well and good, but it still doesn’t mean that on-field effectiveness matches the level of play that should be associated with a player generating that level of ink.
Even with his shooting falling at an unsustainable 45.3 percent from beyond the arc (his career three-point percentage before 2023-24 was 34.2), Brooks doesn’t get to the stripe frequently enough , doesn’t create enough positive off-script plays or elevate his teammates enough to function as a distinctive positive on the scoring side.
And while he is a pest on defense who can get under the skin of opposing players, he also frequently commits fouls and can find himself caught up in individual clashes to the detriment of high-quality team defense at a degree that prevents it from emerging as a must-have. being an All-Defensive candidate.
Reason for value disconnection: Role redundancy
While Eric Gordon can make three-pointers, serve as a capable secondary playmaker and provide consistent pressure at the rim, he is no longer at a point in his career where those skills matter as much. He’s not efficient enough to require the touches needed to maximize his abilities, but he does need touches to make an impact because he’s a poor defender who doesn’t exhibit the same degree of off-ball gravitational pull as he once did. .
Additionally, he plays for the Phoenix Suns.
At full power, the desert dwellers should always have at least one of Kevin Durant, Bradley Beal and Devin Booker on the court. That leaves Gordon to serve as a tertiary offensive option, operating alongside a singular star or leading an entirely overmatched bench unit with the primary goal of not hemorrhaging a lead.
Despite all the attention Gordon has garnered on the trade market during his incredibly long stay with the Houston Rockets, he has not posted a post. positive box plus/minus since 2017-18. Scheduled to turn 35 on Christmas Day, he is unlikely to change that or emerge as an actor with value worthy of his reputation anytime soon.
Reason for value disconnection: Enticing per-match figures and rising scores
At just 21 years old, Jalen Green is coming off a season in which he scored 22.1 points per game, and he is now averaging 19.2 points, 4.4 rebounds and 2.9 assists per game for a team of the Houston Rockets well-established in the Western Conference mix. playoff photo.
Except… Green’s 53.8 true shooting percentage and his inability to play acceptable defense made him a net negative as a sophomore. That story proved true again early in his 2023-24 campaign. His true shooting percentage has stagnated, both because he’s shooting 45.8% from two-point range and 33.3% from beyond the arc, and he’s posting a worse assist ratio per rotation while continuing to fight – although a little less – on the prevention side. .
As was the case with Josh Giddey, this isn’t a long-term concern. Green is extremely talented and he is adjusting to not being the best option every night. Just as this alpha role had pros and cons for a young, developing player, so too did taking a back seat. He’s learning to pick his positions more effectively on the fly, but he’s also erred too far out of passivity alongside Fred VanVleet and Alperen Şengün.
He should figure it out, but he’s currently light years away from the expected third-year breakout.
Reason for value disconnection: No more Stephen Curry stamp
Jordan Poole could get away with a lot playing for a team featuring Stephen Curry and, to a lesser extent, the gravitational pull of Klay Thompson and the basketball sense of Draymond Green (before the whistle) . But for a humble Washington Wizards team that often doesn’t feel like it can get out of its own way, that’s not even true anymore.
Poole often operates with a seemingly omnipresent green light, but he now only cuts 39.5/29.3/85.4 while putting his passing hat on first even less frequently. Although he can dazzle opponents with his ball-handling wizardry and make occasional shots that 93 percent of NBA players wouldn’t even attempt during a meaningless game at the local YMCA, the spice and hardware scoring have less importance when paired with frequent plays that show a fundamental ignorance of basketball fundamentals.
(See: Poole “walking the dog” to preserve the shot clock without remembering that he was bleeding the game clock while running at a deficit.)
He makes for a painful inclusion here as his style is beyond entertaining when the shots fall. But even those buckets often feature less than ideal shot selection, which seems to frustrate open teammates. At some point, a change in style is necessary for the 24-year-old in the first step of a four-year, rookie-scale extension worth up to $140 million.
Reason for value disconnection: Nostalgia
Klay Thompson still plays with the same swagger. He has the same perfect shooting stroke. He fills the same role for the Golden State Warriors.
However, it doesn’t hit at the same rate. Not nearly the same price, actually.
Enough prominent talking heads have begun to shine a spotlight on Thompson’s struggles that the popular perception of his game has caught up with the more limited value he has displayed since returning from his seemingly endless string of injuries. But the nostalgia factor and his long tenure as a precision shooting specialist made it difficult for the masses to accept the abrupt denouement of his career.
Thompson is taking shots from inside the arc at a more limited rate than ever, which is problematic when he’s hitting just 36.6 percent of his threes and rarely getting to the boards. He’s a relatively non-factor as a rebounder and passer, and his diminished lateral mobility has made it increasingly difficult for him to live up to the “D” part of his “three and D” reputation.
For the first time since his rookie season, dating back to 2011-12, when his most frequent five-man lineup involved Charles Jenkins, David Lee, Jeremy Tyler and Dorell Wright, the Warriors took the field. wrong end of scoring margin with Thompson on the floor.
Reason for value disconnection: Unable to elevate his role when not supported by stars
Andrew Wiggins never really lived up to the hype associated with his first overall draft pick in 2014, although he settled in nicely as a high-end role player after leaving a larger role with the Minnesota Timberwolves. He accepted his limitations and played in the flow of the offense en route to an (admittedly questionable) All-Star selection in 2021-22 and a title with the Golden State Warriors.
But between his name recognition and his sky-high salary ($24.3 million in 2023-24, rising to a $30.2 million player option in 2026-27), Wiggins’ reputation currently far exceeds its production.
Wiggins is good as a tertiary – sometimes even quaternary – scorer for the Dubs, capable of crashing the boards and playing smart defense, but he has proven completely incapable of elevating lineups that don’t feature Stephen Curry. Or, for that matter, those who do.
The Warriors were dominated by 8.7 points per 100 possessions with Wiggins on the field in 2023-24, a far cry from the plus-5.3 net rating posted in the same situation last year. Worse yet, the Warriors are 18.9 points better per 100 possessions when Wiggins is not on the court.
The 28-year-old is mired in a shooting slump, but his missing shot has also affected other elements of his game, giving him even more passivity and affecting his concentration and defensive abilities. Even if he rebounds to a level closer to his 2022-23 efforts, that would still leave his production looking down on his reputation.
All statistics, unless otherwise noted, courtesy of NBA.com And Basketball reference and precise entering Friday’s games.
